


All roads lead to rome

by millygal



Series: Journeys [1]
Category: Life on Mars (UK)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-20
Updated: 2013-09-20
Packaged: 2017-12-27 03:35:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/973826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/millygal/pseuds/millygal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He just had to push...</p>
            </blockquote>





	All roads lead to rome

Sam's fully aware that if he continues down this line of enquiry, he'll basically be sounding the death knell for his and Gene's relationship, but, he's got to know.

Little bits and pieces have been off for a while, tiny moments of something intangible that only he can see, because of course, if anyone's gonna be seeing things, it's him, bloody hell.

No, it's not just the fact he's got a tiny amount of experience with crazy. It's Gene. Everything to do with Gene is connected in Sam's head. He can almost taste their own personal timeline in the grand scheme of things and, something is off.

So, just because he can't EVER leave a single thing alone, even if that thing may herald the end of everything, he's knee deep in the dusty records room searching for some clue. Might help if he knew what clue he was actually looking for.

The latent senses every human being possesses are telling him to keep digging and he'll get what he's after.

He's rifling through papers from the year Gene joined the force, personnel files of officers he's never met yet feels a kind of empathy with. Names and faces of young men fighting for the greater good, whether that be as a traffic cop or a homicide detective.

Bingo, 1953, Gene's year of acceptance. Name, letter of enrolment, no picture.

Except, there is no Gene, not past basic training and first week on the beat.

Huh?

Ok, so, Gene's either the worlds most invisible copper, especially seen as there should be a whole record room dedicated to just his misdemeanours alone, or...no, not possible.

Sam has long ago stopped seeing that creepy little test card bint, but, in the middle of the night, while Gene's snoring in his ear and he just can't switch his brain to neutral, he's been seeing, well, stars.

Lots and lots of stars.

He'd assumed he'd been drifting in and out of consciousness, but maybe...

One minute he'll be watching the rise and fall of Gene's chest as he mumbles in his sleep, the next the walls to the house they now share, will just disappear, and he's floating in what can only be described as the cosmos.

He's mentioned the strange night time 'visions' to his partner, only twice, but that was enough.

Underneath the usual brashness and impatience with his lover's odd brain, there was something else, some mental tic. Gene's eyes had narrowed, he'd held his breath for the merest moment, and then it was gone, just Gene needling Sam for being a poncy pain in the arse window licker.

Anyone else would've never noticed his reactions, but Sam, so in tune with the man he's been sharing his existence with for the last 7 years, almost got slapped in the face by the subtle shift in his partners demeanour.

So, as the last recorded act of Gene Hunt was security detail for the Coronation, Sam thinks maybe he should go check out exactly what it was his Guv'd been doing all those years ago.

Sliding a photograph of a farmhouse and Gene's enrolment papers into his pocket, Sam stands, dusts himself off and wanders back out into the squad room, "Oi Gladys, what's so interestin' in records?".

Sam nearly has heart failure, "Jesus Gene, go easy on a fella would ya. You trying to kill me!".

Gene's left eye twitches, once, and then he grimaces and sneezes, "Damn Sammy, you smell like my great Aunt Mable's wardrobe, go an' get some air on ya".

Sam shakes his head, smiles and walks out to the parking lot, "Borrow the car?"

Gene rifles round his pockets for a second, throws a set of keys at Sam's outstretched hand and glares, "Dent 'er, I'll dent you"

"You know full well I don't drive like, oh say, you! She'll be fine"

It's this easy banter that makes Sam think he might be pulling at threads for nothing, but, that's never stopped him being a nosey sod, so he waves and buggers off for a quick drive before knocking off time.  
_________________________________________________________________________________

When Sam pulls up to a dilapidated old house in the arse end of nowhere, his skin starts to tingle. There's something, there's definitely something here.

He of all people should know well enough not to ignore the strangeness of it all just 'cos that's what you're taught to do as you 'grow up', so, focusing on the odd sensation that's giving him goose bumps, he locks the Cortina up and takes a walk round the back of the building.

Something is calling him, silently yes, but it's screaming across his skin and banging a drum at the base of his skull. It's a ridiculous theory, even for his warped and twisted imagination, but Sam can't help thinking he's on to something. Even if he can't bring himself to say it out loud, not in the dead of night, not even to himself.

He finds himself staring at the back of the house, staring up at cracked and shattered windows, like unseeing eyes, staring back at him, taunting him.

He takes one step forward, as if to try and enter the house and his foot hit's an uneven mound in the earth. Toppling forward he slams palm first into the sodden grass covered dirt. Everything around him shifts and changes, there's no more house, no more wet grass clinging to his fingers. He's surrounded by stars, a galaxy worth of stars. All shimmering and sparkling at him. In amongst the bright spots, he feels rather than sees the shadow of a figure.

Flashing in and out of his peripheral vision is a man with almost no face, one bloody rolling eye staring straight at him, narrowed and accusing.

He doesn't recognise the man himself, not his shape, his height, his lack of bulk, but the eye, that bloodshot, off white eye, with a brilliant cobalt blue iris, he recognises that.

He's not sure if he's screaming on the inside or the outside, right now everything is topsy turvy anyway. His insides could very well be his outsides.

He's digging his nails into the grass and muck below his hands, trying to hang on to the side of a world that's on the tilt. So there has to be something real there.

Real.

What the hell is real!

This can't be, categorically can not, be real.

But that man, that awful faceless gore soaked man, is still pressing in on the sides of his brain and he can't stop his gag reflex kicking in.

He vomits, and vaguely, in some forgotten part of his psyche, he wonders what he's vomiting on if he's floating in a big blanket of stardust.

He closes his eyes, screws them tight shut, hoping against hope that when he opens them, there'll be nothing but a pile of sick and a set of green knees to contend with.

When he eventually plucks up the courage to open one eye, he's back on his hands and knees in the scum and muck. In front of him, there's an envelope with his name scrawled on it.

It's a child's penmanship, a mixture of upper and lower case, with the 'E' missing out of Tyler.

With nerves of steel he doesn't feel, he extends one quivering hand and plucks it from the grass. There's a momentary flash. The faceless man, nodding his head. And then he's gone. Sucking down lung fulls of air, Sam turns over the envelope and opens it.

Inside is an old fashioned warrant card.

Spattered in blood.

Eyebrows creased in confusion, he stares at the picture of a man, well boy, with a wide smile, smart blues and twos and a set of very familiar eyes.

'Gene Hunt-Enrolled 1953  
'District: Manchester and Salford  
D.O.B-06/08/34'

The kid in the picture is a far cry from the big burly whiskey swilling crime fighting criminal kicking man he's come to know, and well, love.

But those eyes....

"Oh god"

Sam's never wished so fervently to be wrong about anything in his life, but he can't ignore the evidence in his hands that's slapping him in the face.

_________________________________________________________________________________

Sam's completely numb.

He's parked the Cortina back in it's usual spot, made it all the way up to the squad room and he has no clue on earth how he's managed with feet that don't feel like they're attached to the ends of his legs.

He sees Gene sat in his office, distorted by the semi shut blinds, and his heart almost crumbles in on itself. It's a physical ache in the centre of his chest, pounding hard enough to shatter his ribs. He doesn't know how everyone in the room can't hear it.

He still has the warrant card clasped in his muddy fist.

Dragging himself towards the office, Sam's not sure whether he's strong enough for this, how can it all be a lie, how can it all feel so real and be so impossible all at the same time.

Not bothering to knock, Sam enters Gene's lair and shuts the door behind him.

"Good god, what 'appened ta you Dorothy? You look like you bin 10 rounds with a grizzly!"

Shaking his head to try and clear some of the crimson tinted fog out of it, Sam lifts his face to Gene's searching eyes and knows, instantly, that he was exactly on the money. He's never wanted to be proved wrong so much.

"Guv, what happened?"

Gene's confused expression is almost too much for Sam to bear, but he forges on, regardless.

"In 1953, what happened, what happened to PC Gene Hunt?"

"He, who..he was..."

Sam desperately wants to wrap him up in cotton wool and forget this conversation, if that's what it really is, has happened. But, he can't, "Come on Guv, Ge..Gene, what happened to that skinny little lad. Coronation day, you remember?"

Gene's whole demeanour changes. Sam'd been expecting anger, instead he gets something he has never seen on his lover's face, defeat.

"He, he was a...he was skinny. He was... He was a skinny lad, needed fattening up... That was Morrison said that... His mentor PC Morrison ..."

He leans forward and plucks the warrant card from Sam's fingers.

"Yeah...Coronation Day. That was a funny day. I remember...Everyone round a telly set or at a party..."

Sam can't bring himself to look Gene in the eye. His voice is soft, lilting, like he's telling some kid a bedtime story.

"Yeah, it was his first week on the beat..."

Gene sounds surprised, surprised that the memory is so strong after all these year.

"That was a week and a half! Scary being the new boy. But he had old Morrison to guide him ... Then the old fella got carried away. Someone gave him a nip of whisky and before you know it he’s given his hat to a baker’s wife and he’s doing the hokey-cokey..."

"Young bobby’s suddenly on his own..."

The note of real fear in Gene's voice brings Sam's head up without him even realising he's doing it, and the look on Gene's face, it's almost enough to make Sam cry.

"He liked the flicks. Adventure films, all that. Looking for an adventure on Coronation Day. Bloody hell, he found one ... Someone ... yeah, someone broke in to that house. He heard them. Thought they were kids. So he kicked that door open. Like John Wayne ... Jimmy Stewart ..."

Gene smiles sadly, a cracked and splintered impression of a smile that never reaches his eyes.

"Westerns. He loved ‘em. Loved ‘em"

Sam finds himself sat on Gene's desk, willing him to go on and petrified of what will happen if he does.

"Bam! In he goes! And up here, in his noodle, he’s not some snotty kid in a uniform that’s too big for him ... He’s Gary Cooper in “High Noon”. He’s The Law"

A smirk touches Gene's face, and then it's gone.

"But it wasn’t kids. Was it. It was a man with a stash of silverware."

Sam can't help himself, his mouth's open before he realises.

"A man .. A man with a gun?"

"Didn’t deserve a shallow grave in a potato plot, did he? Did he Sammy?"

Sam's insides go ice cold, "No"

He finds he's suddenly, scorchingly furious, with himself and Gene and the whole damn thing, "Why didn't you...why didn't you tell me, Gene, why didn't you tell me! All those times we...all that time we just spent. Why?"

Gene finally focuses on Sam, perched precariously on his desk, and his face contorts into a mask of sheer unadulterated agony.

"I forgot, everything, I lost soddin' track of EVERYTHING. Oh, Sammy, why'd you 'ave to, why'd you 'ave to figure all this stuff out. I don't wanna remember, I was 'appy, for the first time in what seems like a bloody century, why'd you 'ave to do it!"

Sam stands, slowly, ever so slowly, sidles his way in front of Gene, lays both hands oh so gently on his shoulders and stares him straight in the eyes.

"Because I knew. Not in the sense of actually knowing anything, but I knew something wasn't right. I leapt off a building to come back to you, and I don't know about you but that's a bloody huge sign that something's a little amiss"

Gene shakes himself, lays his forehead against Sam's chest and weeps. He weeps for all the lives he's ferried from the in between to the ever after. He weeps for himself, for finally remembering what it is he's decided to do with his afterlife.

And he weeps for Sam.

Sam will leave, Sam will choose to move on, because Sam is as Sam does and Sam will want everything in the right order.

Sam allows Gene to cry himself out before asking the question he already knows the answer to.

"Will you come with me?"

The reply is muffled by layers of leather and tear soaked cotton, "I can't"

Sam's shoulders stiffen and tries to pull away but Gene's wrapped his hulking great arms round his waist and he can't gain enough purchase to get away.

"Please"

Sam can't look down, can't see the tears still glistening in his soul mate's eyes, because it will finish him, he will be nothing more than a shadow of someone who used to know what it was to just be.

"Sammy, please, look at me"

Sucking up the courage, Sam tips his chin forward, and sees real sorrow in Gene's gaze.

"I chose this. I chose this 'life'. I've never felt for anyone else what I feel for you Sammy, but I chose to be here to help those who need a little guidance. I can't, won't abandon that just because I want something so badly I can taste it"

And in that sentence, Sam can see the truth of what Gene is telling him.

Gene could never walk away from a job half done, a promise half fulfilled. He loves him for it. He hates him for it too, but that won't change who Gene is and he wouldn't ask the man to be anyone else.

_________________________________________________________________________________

They've spent one last night together, one final time of just being with each other. Skin against skin. No layers to work through, no bullshit to decipher. Just them, doing what they do best, loving each other.

And now it's time.

Time to say goodbye to the best of the best that Sam has ever known.

They're stood outside the Railway Arms, Nelson is holding the door open for Sam, and Gene is gripping his hand so tightly Sam thinks his fingers may have died all over again.

Gene turns Sam to face him, hands on his shoulders, head tilted ever so slightly, quizzical look on his face, "What d'ya think god'll make of a great, soft, sissy, girly, nancy, French, bender, Man United-supporting poof?"

Despite the tears now freely coursing down Sam's cheeks, he laughs, one huge belly rumbling blast of pure mirth.

"Dunno Guv, maybe, when you've finished doing whatever it is you need to do here, you can come find out"

Gene smiles, because he understands completely that Sam means what he says. It won't matter how many family members await his arrival, or how many times he'll laugh in his own private piece of heaven, Sam will wait for him to finish what it is he's doing in the place between awake and asleep, between dreams and nightmares.

Gene touches his forehead to Sam's, stares into his gorgeous eyes one last time, and nods.

"A life less ordinary Gene, a life less ordinary"  
"We must take the current Sam, always..."

Sam marvels at Gene's ability to amaze and surprise him, even now, even when he feels as though his heart will beat from within his chest. Even when he wants nothing more than to stay here, with this man, the man who's made him whole, for the rest of his own eternity.

But, it just wouldn't be right.

All things in their proper place.

Sliding his lips against his Guv's, enjoying everything that makes him Gene, Sam nods and pulls back.

Spinning Sam towards Nelson, Gene watches him walk, a little unsteadily, into the pub and mutters quietly to himself, "Have one for me Sammy boy, have one for me"

Turning away, not wanting to linger in the street with tears in his eyes and sadness in his soul that could almost be mistaken for joy, in the wrong light, Gene walks back to his car, throws himself inside and guns the engine.

A new day, a new soul.


End file.
